Photo: Rod Clark/ facebook
Loved ones are remembering 64-year-old Rodney Clark, who died while protecting his wife when aviolent tornado leveled their home in Iowaover the weekend.
Clark and his wife, Judy, were hiding in a bathtub when the tornado, which hadwind speedsmeasuring between 136 miles per hour and 165 miles per hour, swept through Madison County on Saturday, according toKCCI.
The tornado threw the couple 100 feet before the tub they were in landed in a pile of debris, the news station reported.
Family members said Clark, a father of three who did not survive the impact, placed himself on top of his wife in an attempt to shield her from the storm.
“He laid on top of her and held her close and pretty much saved her life,” Jase Brumfild, Clark’s grandson, told KCCI. “I just knew that that was him. That was something that he would definitely do.”
The pair had been married for 20 years and enjoyed dancing and riding horses together, loved ones said.
“They were inseparable,” said Rhys Pate, Clark’s son-in-law. “So I think [Judy] is just having a hard time processing how she was the ‘lucky one.'”
The couple’s home was also destroyed in the tornado, and family member Jacob Burriola created aGoFundMeto help Judy recover.
“Rod Clark put his wife in their tub, and threw himself on top of her, sacrificing his life to save hers,” he wrote on the donation page. “HE IS A REAL LIFE HERO! I’m starting this fund so his wife Judy can put this to use to help their family however she sees fit in this horrible time.”
The campaign has raised nearly $13,000 as of Wednesday afternoon.
Along with Clark, six others died in the storm, includingfour members of a single family: Melissa Bazley, 63, her son-in-law, 37-year-old Michael Bolger, and two of his children, Kinlee Bolger, 5, and Owen Bolger, 2.
Cecilia Lloyd, 72, and Jesse Theron Fisher, 40, were also among the dead, according to theAssociated Press. Fisher died in a separate tornado that hit Lucas County.
The tornado that hit Madison County is said to be Iowa’s deadliest since 2008, when eight people died in Parkersburg and New Hartford, theDes Moines Registerreported.
source: people.com
